


Brigadoon

by dragonflower1



Category: The Shape of Water (2017)
Genre: Character Study, Female Character of Color, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Period-Typical Racism, Pre-Canon, Segregation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:55:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21841792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonflower1/pseuds/dragonflower1
Summary: Zelda meets Elisa for an afternoon of escapism at the Orpheum and discovers a reality she hadn’t expected.A/N:  Tagged for violence due to references to domestic abuse and alcoholism.
Relationships: Elisa Esposito & Zelda Fuller
Comments: 7
Kudos: 17
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Brigadoon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_heart_asks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_heart_asks/gifts).



> Thank you for the opportunity to write in The Shape of Water fandom! I've been wanting to get my feet wet here for a while, but haven't had the chance before now. Although I never thought my first fic would center around Elisa and Zelda, I've always loved the the way they look out for each other. So when you suggested something pre-canon that featured their friendship, I immediately pounced on that idea and ran with it. It was an eye-opening experience, not only in terms of exploring their relationship, but also learning about the harsh realities of life for a black woman in mid-20th century Baltimore. The story is set in 1958, about four years before the Asset arrives at Occam, and is told from Zelda's POV. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed creating it for you! Happy Yuletide!
> 
> Lastly, a big thanks to nightmare_lane for the beta. Any remaining errors are mine.

Zelda fished the program from last Sunday’s service out of her purse and fanned herself with it as she gazed out the bus window. It was hot for mid-May, and the sun beating down through the dual back windows didn’t help. She could already feel prickles of perspiration starting up under her wig. 

She heaved a resigned sigh, giving a passing thought to moving closer to the front where what little air conditioning the vents could crank out was concentrated, but decided against it. It was only 1958, after all. Rosa Parks might have made her stand in Alabama in ‘55, and the Baltimore schools might be integrating students now, but overall, things hadn’t changed all that much in Maryland in the past few years, and didn’t seem likely to anytime soon. 

Besides, she didn’t have the fortitude today to deal with the backlash it would probably incite if she tried it, even though it was early afternoon and the bus was currently empty except for herself and the driver. She was too weary and sad to have much fight left in her at the moment, what with Brewster having taken off three weeks ago now, without a word from him since. The worst part about it was that she was torn between missing him something awful and feeling nothing but relief that he was gone. 

Uncomfortable with that admission, even to herself, she shifted in her seat and primly resettled her pocketbook in her lap, gestures of composure that did little to soothe the upheaval within. Destined, it seemed, to be unsatisfied, she finally gave up a few minutes later and resumed her futile efforts to cool herself with the mimeographed sheet of folded paper, now crumpled and wilted by the heat of her hand. She turned to stare out the window again, although her eyes were unseeing as her mind traveled back, yet again, over a relationship that had been rocky from the start. 

Brewster was a big man: tall, dark, and proud; and Zelda, while she was a small, round woman like her mother, had always been – as he’d called her early on and with some pride – a ‘firecracker.’ Their loving was intense and passionate, their battles epic, and it wasn’t unusual for the both of them to be sporting bloodied lips and bruises in the aftermath of either. 

The downside was that Brewster had a bit of a drinking problem, and sometimes it got the better of him. 

When it did, he got careless, which usually meant losing whatever two-bit job he’d managed to hold down by the skin of his teeth for a year or two. Once that happened, it was like watching a line of dominoes fall. He’d take to his recliner, staring off into space as he drank in earnest, sinking deeper into depression and getting angrier at himself and the world with each passing day. Then he’d start looking at her like he hated her, too; like her very presence irritated him, no matter how quietly she’d tiptoe or how quickly she’d serve him his meals. Finally, he’d start lashing out at her. First verbally, heaping abuse on her for her cooking and her housekeeping skills, and making cutting remarks about her looks and weight – anything he could think of to hurt her; then physically. 

It was the last that had always been the turning point for him in the past. Not that he hadn’t knocked her around once in a while when things were good between them; she’d done the same to him on more than one occasion. But when he sank so low that he actually got violent, it was usually enough to bring him up short and knock some sense into him. 

This time was different. 

This time, he’d gone after her with such murderous intent that she’d been truly afraid of him for the first time in her life. She’d fought him off as best she could, and gotten in a few good licks of her own, but he’d finally managed to get ahold of her in the kitchen, trapping her up against the sink. Then he’d wrapped those big, strong hands that she loved so much around her neck, and he’d started to choke her with such a scary look in his eye that she’d had to grab her cast iron skillet right out the dishpan where she’d left it to soak and clock him with it to defend herself. 

A trickle of sweat ran down the side of Zelda’s face and into her eye, the unexpected sting of salt pulling her out of her reverie. With a hiss of pain, she squeezed her lid shut and rubbed at it with the heel of one hand while she fumbled with the window next to her with the other. She pressed down on the latch and shoved, and the long rectangular pane of glass slid forward stiffly in its track a couple of inches, a sliver of blessed relief that allowed a breeze to blow in. It might have been as hot as the stagnant air inside the bus and smelled faintly of exhaust and garbage, but at least it was moving, cooling her as it dried the perspiration on her face. 

She’d just closed her eyes and tilted her head back to enjoy the sensation when the bus driver’s voice yelled at her to close the goddamn window before she let all the air conditioning out. 

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” she murmured apologetically, meeting his disapproving glare in the rearview mirror as she dragged the window closed again with a thump. 

The force of the frame’s sudden stop reverberated up her arm and she was forcibly reminded of how it had felt when the soapy pan had connected with Brewster’s head. The dull thud of the impact and the sound of him falling to the floor like a sack of potatoes still made her shudder to remember. For a split second that night, she’d thought she’d killed him, and images of being dragged away in handcuffs and thrown in prison for the rest of her life had flashed before her eyes. Lucky for her, he was so bonelessly drunk he’d just shaken it off.

Like a wounded bear, he’d lumbered to his feet and they’d squared off, her clutching the skillet in front of her like a weapon and him sizing her up while blood poured down the side of his head from the cut in his scalp that she’d given him. She’d watched with wide, horrified eyes as it had soaked into the collar of his shirt, but he’d been too inebriated to even notice.

He’d stared at her for a long moment, then shaken his head, spattering blood all over her nice clean kitchen. “I can’t do this anymore,” he’d finally mumbled, before turning away and stumbling out of the room. She’d trailed slowly after him, her heart in her throat, pounding hard after her recent throttling. Tracking his progress through the house by the drops of gore left behind like breadcrumbs in the woods, she’d heard the familiar jingling of the car keys as he’d grabbed them out of the change bowl in the entry and the sound of him stomping into the work boots he kept by the front door. 

“Brewster, don’t you even _think_ about driving in your condition!” she’d called out, echoes of faded concern and affection outweighing her trepidation. But as she’d reached the hall, the door was just closing behind him, and by the time she’d laid her still-shaking hand on the knob and pulled it open again, the taillights of their most recent second-hand junk heap of a car were disappearing around the corner at the end of the block. 

She’d spent the better part of the next hour beside herself with worry, although she’d known where he was probably heading: his sister’s place. She lived up near Park Heights with a ne’er-do-well husband of her own and four squalling kids. He always retreated there when things got too rough or went too far, and he needed time to dry out and get his head together. 

Once she’d received the requisite phone call from Norma, advising her that Brewster had made it in one piece, she’d relaxed a little, knowing that he was in good hands. But when one week stretched to two, then to three, with no additional communication from him and her own messages left unreturned, she didn’t know what to think or how to feel. 

Which is how she ended up on this bus, heading for a section of Baltimore she rarely visited, at two o’clock in the afternoon on a weekday when she should have been home, sleeping. She glanced around at the passing buildings, none of them familiar, and hoped she hadn’t missed her stop while she’d been gathering wool. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken public transportation in the middle of the day, and she normally avoided the docks. Who wouldn’t? The area near them was even rougher than _her_ neighborhood. 

Unfortunately, it was also where Elisa lived, in a tiny apartment above the Orpheum, the old, rundown theater that showed old, second-run movies a couple of years after their initial release. And she was visiting at Elisa’s insistence – the only reason Zelda would even consider making the trip at all. 

After working together as night janitors at Occam Aerospace Research Center for nearly a decade, cleaning labs and storage areas and offices side-by-side, Zelda was almost tempted to call what they had a friendship. They’d hit it off immediately right from the very beginning, in spite of the barriers Elisa’s being mute had presented; and once Zelda had started picking up some sign language, they’d been off and running, chatting and laughing and joking the night away. 

Well, Zelda did anyway. 

To fill the silence, she often regaled Elisa with anecdotes about Brewster, amusing stories she’d save up that started with such beguiling openings as, ‘You wouldn’t believe what he did today,’ and ‘When I got home, I found him up to his elbows in…’ to help make the time go by. But apparently, she’d been quieter than usual herself lately, the kind of quiet a woman gets when she’s having man trouble. 

And Elisa had noticed. Of course she had. She was so observant of the world around her, drinking it all in as if not having a voice had opened up her other senses to their fullest. 

She’d cornered Zelda in the locker room about it a couple of days ago when they were coming off shift, and badgered her with fingers flying until Zelda had finally given in and let her know what was going on. Elisa’s eyes had filled with compassion and understanding, and she’d immediately invited Zelda to come over and take in a show with her – Elisa’s treat – to help get her mind off her troubles. 

Zelda had given her an odd look. After all, going to the movies when one had misplaced a husband seemed like a very small bandage to put on a very large wound. But Elisa had been so sincere in her desire to help and seemed so certain that it would lift her spirits, that Zelda had come away half-convinced herself. 

So, here she was, stewing in her own juices and going nowhere fast, while visions of slaking her growing thirst with a tall, cool glass of water danced in her head as she watched the buildings go by, hoping for a landmark soon. As if summoned into existence, the pharmacy on the corner that Elisa had mentioned hove into view and Zelda caught a glimpse of the dilapidated marquee for the Orpheum halfway down the cross street they were just passing. 

She reached up and pulled the bell cord above the window then rose and made her way toward the back door. As the bus rolled up to the next bus stop, she saw Elisa sitting on the bench, gazing up at the windows intently. Zelda caught her eye through the glass, and Elisa smiled and waved. 

By the time Zelda descended the steps and touched down on the curb, Elisa was standing and brushing her hands over the skirt of a slim, short-sleeved argyle sheath dress in shades of tan, red, and white. With it she wore a brown belt and a pair of two-tone mesh-and-leather pumps to match. Over her arm was a small, impractical tooled-leather handbag that looked like it was designed to hold a lipstick and a change purse and not much else, and in her hair was a red headband that went with her dress. She’d obviously dressed with care, and looked fresh and pretty and as far removed from the meek janitor in drab skirts and cardigans that slaved her nights away at Occam as Zelda had ever seen her. 

Zelda, for her part, lifted her hand to the back of her bouffant to make sure everything was still tucked in place and then tried to smooth the front of her yellow cotton shift, hoping she didn’t actually look like the melting, wrinkled mess she was sure she was.

They stared awkwardly at each other as the bus pulled away, as if suddenly both very aware that they’d never purposely met up outside of work to do anything like this before. Some evenings they made plans to spend their meal breaks together; and once in a while when their shift was over, they bought coffee and donuts from a street vendor who sometimes set up shop near Occam, and dawdled for a little bit before they caught their respective buses home. But they hadn’t once in ten years done anything even remotely social that didn’t somehow revolve around their jobs. 

Elisa recovered first and smiled warmly in greeting, then picked up two bottles of cola that had been sitting on the bench behind her and offered one to Zelda, the top already off and a paper straw already stuck in it. With a grateful sigh, Zelda took it from her. The glass was cold and wet with condensation, and all she wanted to do was press it to her flushed cheek and roll it back and forth across her feverish brow. But instead, she thanked Elisa properly and sipped at like a lady as the other woman lifted her chin to invite Zelda to join her, then turned and started to make her way down the sidewalk. 

Zelda hurried to catch up and fell into step next to her. “What’s playing?” she asked slightly out of breath, realizing just now that she’d never thought to ask.

‘B-R-I-G-A-D-O-O-N,’ Elisa signed, spelling it out with one hand as they reached the corner. She paused in front of the pharmacy to finish her drink and Zelda followed suit, handing her empty to her companion, who deposited both in the crate sitting discretely by the door. 

‘I’ve seen it a few times already, but I’m looking forward to seeing it again,’ Elisa confessed as she rose from her crouch, grinning mischievously. ‘You know how much I love musicals, and the Orpheum doesn’t usually run them; so, I sneak into the theater once in a while on the weekends for one of the late, late shows when I can’t sleep. The boy in the booth is usually dozing by then, and there’s no one else around. 

‘And this one is so perfectly romantic, I had to share it. Imagine loving someone so much, you’d give up your whole life – everything you’ve known – just to be with them!’ Elisa sighed wistfully. ‘I can’t get enough of it.’ 

“Oh,” Zelda remarked noncommittally, her forehead creasing slightly with a frown. She knew about _Brigadoon_ , although she’d never seen it. The plot had been common knowledge ever since it had come out three years ago. While lost in the Scottish Highlands during a hunting trip, two New York businessmen stumble upon a village that magically appears out of the mist for a single day once every hundred years. One of the main characters falls so deeply in love with a lovely lass from the village, that by the end of the movie he decides to leave his own world behind so he can be with her forever in hers. 

Zelda also vaguely remembered reading reviews for it in the newspaper soon after it had opened. If she recalled correctly, they weren’t very good, but she understood now why Elisa had been so adamant about her seeing it. The girl lived her life in a fantasy world of light and color, song and dance. Beautiful women and handsome men in dazzling outfits falling in love in perfect settings, dancing off together into a blissful happily-ever-after that no real relationship could match – at least not one that Zelda had ever encountered. It almost hurt to gaze into Elisa’s beatific features, knowing how wrong love could go even with the best of intentions. Zelda hoped, for her friend’s sake, that someday Elisa found a love as transformative and life-altering as she dreamed about. 

‘Come on,’ Elisa said, interrupting Zelda’s troubled thoughts. Her hazel eyes twinkled with excitement as she waved Zelda forward. ‘The next show starts in ten minutes.’ 

Hiding her uncertainty behind a smile that felt plastered-on and brittle, Zelda let Elisa chatter on animatedly about Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse until they reached the theater, wondering if she hadn’t made a mistake in coming, after all. She watched as Elisa purchased the tickets, making herself understood easily as she held up two fingers to the very bored teenager sitting in the box office and pulling out the money to pay for them with a flourish, then followed her through the bright red doors and into the lobby.

The foyer was dark and cool after the too-bright, too-hot May afternoon, for which Zelda was grateful, and they paused by the entrance until their eyes adjusted. 

Sconces reminiscent of the Art Deco period emerged from the shadows first, affixed to the dusky golden walls at regular intervals. The meager light they gave off fell on old, faded movie posters and caught the edges of elaborate gilt frames that were otherwise dark and tarnished. The two crystal chandeliers that hung overhead were next. At one time they must have sparkled with dozens of flame-shaped bulbs that blazed brightly in the cavernous space. Now they held about a dozen between them, set in no pattern Zelda could detect – tiny pinpricks of light twinkling like distant stars in indecipherable constellations that cast a sickly yellow glow over the entire lobby, their cut-glass baubles dull with time and dust. 

Then the carpet came into focus, deep red and covered in ornate designs. It might have been beautiful in the theater’s heyday, but now it was threadbare in spots and dark with ground-in dirt in the high traffic areas. The trail led the eye across the expanse to the candy counter that sat by the doors to the theater proper, a glass case that held a small selection of boxed treats. A row of stainless-steel spigots lined the far end, offering soft drinks on tap, although only one had a brand name attached to it. At the other end of the display nearest the cash register sat a popcorn popper, the kind that was usually lit up like a beacon of hope with the promise of butter and salt and crunch, but this one was silent and empty. A matronly woman with steel grey hair set in regimented waves leaned on the counter reading what looked like a library book, oblivious to their presence. 

As Zelda took in the faded opulence, she immediately began calculating what would be needed to make the place shine again. It was a game she’d started playing with herself years ago when she’d decided she wanted to eventually start her own cleaning business, to hone her skills for when some future potential customer wanted an estimate on a job. She’d done it so often, it had become second nature. 

She was just finishing her mind-boggling assessment which included a truckload of cleaning supplies and several teams of workers when she felt Elisa’s fingers hesitantly touch her arm, bringing her back to the present. 

That was when Zelda saw the velvet rope, once maroon, but now as faded and worn as the rest of the place, strung on brass stanchions that funneled patrons across the front of the lobby to an older gentleman with white hair and a cigarette dangling from his lip. He was perched on a stool against the far wall with the imperious attitude of displaced royalty, next to the only opening in the barrier. Beside him stood a small, ornate, semicircular table just big enough to hold a basket for tickets, an overflowing ashtray, and a green ceramic tiki mug giving off a thin vapor of steam. A tartan Thermos bottle stood on the floor next to one of the carved legs.

As they approached, he lowered the newspaper he was reading and peered at them expectantly over his black-rimmed glasses. Zelda instinctively hung back a little while Elisa marched up to him with a smile on her face and handed over the tickets. The easy familiarity with which he smiled back as he tore them in half plucked an unexpected chord of jealousy in Zelda’s breast, and she wondered if this was Elisa’s landlord, Mr. Arzoumanian, who also owned the theater. 

Her conjecture was confirmed a moment later when Elisa started signing slowly, carefully delineating her words like she had when Zelda had first been learning. She picked out the words ‘friend’ and ‘home’ and ‘show,’ and the man’s gaze shifted from Elisa to Zelda, his expression hardening as their eyes met before he refocused on Elisa.

“She’s going to have to sit in the balcony,” he replied in heavily-accented English when Elisa’s hands stilled, in a tone that brooked no argument. 

Elisa paused and blinked, momentarily taken aback, and Zelda watched as comprehension dawned, then anger. She turned round, disbelieving eyes toward Zelda, and Zelda offered a small, conciliatory smile. “It’s alright, Elisa. I don’t mind.”

Even though she did. Sometimes she burned with the unfairness of it all.

‘It’s not right; you’re my guest,’ Elisa signed, too fast for Mr. Arzoumanian to catch, and turned back as if preparing to confront the owner, but Zelda put a hand on her arm to stop her. Elisa whipped her head around, her hazel eyes fierce with the righteous indignation of the systematically-oppressed determined to rise up and set things right. 

Zelda tightened her grip and shook her head gently. She didn’t blame Elisa – or Mr. Arzoumanian, for that matter. There was no reason for Elisa, even as marginalized as she was being mute and as beaten down as she’d been in the orphanage, to stop and consider the world Zelda lived in every day, and how it affected even simple things like what she could do and where she could sit. Elisa might live right upstairs and could entertain whomever she wished in the privacy of her home, but the theater was a place of business. No matter how fine the line of separation or how strong her connection to it, down here they had to abide by the laws and conventions that governed its operation. And while Zelda appreciated her friend’s fury, and was humbled by the care and concern for her as a human being that had motivated it, this was neither the time nor the place for it. They were here for a pleasant afternoon of escapism. The last thing they needed was an ugly scene in a public place over something that one skinny white woman wasn’t going to be able to fix all by herself. Not today, anyway. 

Zelda’s plea for compliance took the wind out of Elisa’s sails and her shoulders sagged in bewildered defeat. Feeling the tension go out of the arm she still had hold of, Zelda tugged cautiously on it as she rested her other hand in the small of Elisa’s back to get her moving. Although there was a stubborn set to Elisa’s jaw that Zelda recognized and usually preceded some of her more mulish moments, thankfully she didn’t resist when Zelda steered her away from Mr. Arzoumanian, who watched the whole exchange through narrowed eyes. 

Before the man could change his mind about letting them in at all, Zelda glanced back and offered him as disarming a smile as she could muster over her shoulder. Then she turned, and together, she and Elisa followed the trail trod by countless feet before them deeper into the theater. 

When they were almost to the candy counter, Elisa slowed and pointed reluctantly to the right. There, in the corner by the door to the ladies’ room, was the staircase to the balcony. 

As one, they veered in that direction, pausing when they reached the foot of the stairs. Zelda glanced up. What she could see of the stairs was as dimly lit as the rest of the theater and took a sharp turn to the left and into the unknown about halfway up. She sighed dejectedly. It was the story of her life.

“I guess I’ll meet you here after…,” she began, but Elisa cut her off sharply.

‘Don’t be silly,’ the woman signed, ‘I came to see the movie _with_ you.’

Zelda glanced nervously in the direction of the lady behind the candy counter, but she was still engrossed in her book.

“But Elisa…,” she tried again, only to be interrupted a second time.

‘No.’ Elisa shook her head in emphasis. ‘You are my invited guest. There’s no reason for either of us to sit by ourselves. I’m not letting you go upstairs alone, and I’m not watching the movie all by myself today either; not when I have a friend to see it with.’

Zelda shifted her weight onto one hip and folded her arms across her abdomen, trying not to let her irritation show. Sometimes it was next to impossible to get Elisa to see reason when she’d made her mind up about something. “So, what do you propose?” She asked archly as she cocked an incredulous eyebrow. 

Determination lit Elisa’s features from within as she slowly pointed first toward Zelda, then herself, then up the stairs. 

Zelda squinted in disbelief as she examined her friend’s face in the artificial gloom, before her eyes widened and her brows rose in surprise. Elisa meant it. 

Any frustration Zelda had been feeling melted away, replaced with such a swell of warmth and affection and gratitude that for a moment she was as speechless as Elisa. Her vision blurred suddenly, and she swallowed hard against a lump in her throat as she gazed at this tiny miracle of a woman, who for all her strangeness and her quirks and her shy, retiring ways, was so much larger than life. And Zelda wondered if maybe Elisa had the right of it – so willing to be swept away by the primal force of love against all odds, so ready to believe in fairy tales and happy endings.

Maybe the truth of it was that Brigadoon’s idyllic promise of a better life wasn’t make-believe, after all. Maybe it could appear anywhere – at any time – if you believed in it strongly enough. Maybe it was as simple as someone caring enough about you as a person to be outraged on your behalf. Or treating you to a movie to cheer you up, and coming to sit with you in the Colored section of the theater because you couldn’t sit in hers, all without question or complaint. 

Or choosing to forgive a husband who’s failed a thousand times in so many ways, and still loving him for the man he used to be. 

_Damn_ , Zelda mused, Elisa was rubbing off on her. 

She wiped a single tear off her cheek and gave in with a huff of breath that could have been a fond laugh. 

“If you insist,” she said, stretching her arm out in the direction of the staircase to indicate Elisa should precede her.

‘I do,’ Elisa replied, and started up the steps.


End file.
